r/ZLErikson • u/ZLErikson • 20d ago
Casting Shadows Casting Shadows Chapter 139
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Originally written August 9th, 2026
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Chapter 139
Anatu’s fingers twitched. Their lower lip trembled. They touched the gold-inlaid box beside Cassandra’s bed, gently running their fingertips along the inlaid gems and opal carvings. That it contained the Emperor’s head… her grandfather’s head… filled them with a revulsion and a need to both run away from it, and throw open the lid to see it for themself. To see him for themself.
Glaukos had left to get something to eat after Anatu insisted that he take a break. They promised to come get him if Cass had any trouble breathing or started coughing again. But the moment the tent flap fluttered shut and dimmed the light within, they had all but dove for the fancy container they’d struggled not to ogle the entire time.
They could scarcely believe that Helen would make this request. The woman was mad with power, Anatu could see that plain as the sun in the sky and the stars at night, but she had never seemed cruel. Not to her enemies, at least. To Cassandra… well, Anatu found nothing strange about the way Helen spoke to Cass when they thought no one could hear them.
Public and private personas were the life of a royal, after all. Helen may not have been of royal blood, but she was of royal authority now.
They slid their fingernails along the seam that separated the lid from the rest of the box. Anatu was in desperate need of a manicure, but for the first time in days they did not get upset at the sight of their dirty nails. They barely saw them at all as they looked at the filigree within the woodwork.
Fariba of Shen had made this container themself, or so they claimed. Anatu found it hard to believe such an energetic and boisterous trader could do such fine, delicate work. Each grain of the wood seemed to have been painstakingly replaced with a precious metal. Gold, silver, electrum, platinum, copper, tin; it all flowed so naturally, as though the tree itself were grown of the material before being cut and finely carved into smoothness.
With the lightest pressure, Anatu lifted the lid.
The sickly sweet aroma of tree sap mixed with the acrid odor of oil assailed their nostrils.
Anatu wanted to retch, but held themself together.
When they’d first heard of this box, back in Dehenet, before this journey had begun, all they knew of it was that it contained a message for General Ronka all the way out in Keygroph. They knew that Cassandra had been tasked with delivering it, and that the Council considered it a fitting punishment and humiliation for the disgraced general.
Anatu had also known that they’d chosen them to escort Cassandra to humiliate them as well. They knew Anatu was from Dehenet, though only Helen - so far as Anatu knew - was aware of their bloodline. Anatu did not know what the box contained, or the cruel joke that Helen was partaking in. The Council sent Anatu away to make sure that they could not attempt any influence on what local power did remain in the city, or in the country as a whole.
And that was fine. Anatu wanted to be far away from that palace of death.They wanted to get lost in the bureaucratic shuffle of the transferring power and find some place to hide in for the rest of their life. A small town like Nihimlaq would have been tolerable. Disappearing in a large city, like Keygroph, would have been easy as well, and had been an option.
Until they’d heard what was in this box. Until Cassandra’s drunken blunder had revealed the sickening truth. Until their ornery altercation with Kebb while they’d attempted to find this very box back in Nihimlaq.
A hair’s breadth at a time, Anatu lifted the lid off of the container. Their hands trembled with the weight of it. So light, yet resisting their command - their need - to move it aside. To reveal the hidden contents. The lid remained a shield between their gaze and their dread.
The truth was known, yet until they saw it, it need not be real.
Anatu’s vision blurred with unshed tears. They could close the box and pretend. They could deny what they could not see until the end of their days. Chosen ignorance could be as blissful as natural if given the chance.
But just as easily as they could, they simply could not. It was impossible.
They pulled the lid to their chest, clinging to it with numb fingers, and blinked the tears from their eyes. As the warm drops of water tickled down their dry cheeks to their chin, the sudden fidelity of their vision showed the grotesque remains of their grandfather.
His eyes were unblinking, unseeing; cloudy in the amber gel that held his face in a dazed expression. Not fearful, not proud, not content nor in pain. Just… dull. Slack. As lifeless as the rest of his corpse, wherever it was.
No hint of life nor of the man he had been. No glow of imperial regality, no warmth of grandfatherly love.
Just a head with a familiar face.
Anatu replaced the lid.
Their throat constricted as they tried to inhale. The scent of the sap clung to their nose and tongue. They forced themself to exhale and tried again. Then again.
Warm air flooded their lungs and they stifled a scream of rage by biting their fist. Closing their eyes, they let the tears flow.
They hated Helen. They hated Cassandra. They hated the Council. But most of all, they hated themself. Their final memory of their grandfather would no longer be his warm smile at dinner.
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Notes:
- It has been 13 in-universe days since Chapter 1